Here It Goes Again/Rewrite
So, here we are again. Last time didn't work, plain and simple. You know, back when you really wanted to be a writer, and weren't honor-bound to continue this silly pact with the karmic forces of good in the universe, you were always told it's a fundamental role of storytelling that the author should always avoid starting off an exposition dump. You know, it's boring, and you really should start in medias res instead. But this isn't that type of story, you know? Believe me, getting into the action would be great. But you really don't know if there's a better way to start it off. You can't just start with the end of the universe. You have to explain WHY it's the end of the universe. Hello world. Or, what's left of it, anyways. The apocalypse has kind of already happened, and now the day of reckoning is upon us. You reckon that you and the rest of the universe are kind of fucked. An old "friend" of yours ended up taking a dip in the deep end and after a few time traveling shenanigans across multiple timelines, adopted the moniker "Crimelord Direhart". Most people in the universe wouldn't really care about this, but your "employers", from the City of Lore - basically an elite social club for people who think they're too good to die here on our plane of existence - wanted him stopped, and so they started bothering him. A lot. Direhart got tired of this whole pestering schtick, and like how the American revolutionaries got tired of being taxed, decided to start a war. Although, unlike the Americans, Direhart couldn't just declare himself independent. You see, the City of Lore tries to govern the whole universe. You can't exactly declare independence from reality, so Direhart is trying to overthrow the City. You might have sided with Crimelord Direhart, but he is kind of a douchebag, and besides, the City of Lore "adopted" you and your sweetheart into their ranks. You had already kind of been a galactic hero once, and now you've been called on to stop another universal crisis, and... Well, you kind of threw a hissy-fit, because the City of Lore isn't a very good employer. As "punishment", you're down here on Earth instead of up there with the rest of the war heroes. You know the whereabouts of the Omnitrix, and Direhart wants his hands upon it, so you're a pretty huge target now. ---- Those words on the monitor stare back at you, burning deep into your soul. You're here again. Whatever iteration of the "Sol" program the last version of you tried to compile must have either backfired or just led to a dead end. You're hoping the latter, you really don't want to clean up after yourself. You hear that guy's a real asshole. You still seem kind of confused, so you figure you'll spell it out for yourself. Some other iteration of you created a new version of Sol. It failed to meet specifications. It crashed and burned. The timeline was scrapped. The universe is still in danger. And here you are, back at square one. You're going to be going through this cycle, again and again, until you can finally get a version of Sol that will save the universe. You have all the time in the universe you could ever need, though... Based on the intensity of your nightmares, you think that time is running out. Okay, yeah, let me explain to you, just in case you've gotten amnesia. If you have, the universe is probably doomed already, but no big deal. We'll just scrap this timeline and start again, right? From the top. Your name is Jules. If you don't remember it, you're lucky, but you just kind of committed a major crime that offended those on a higher plane of existence (aka, the City of Lore). That crime got you kicked out of that higher plane of existence, and now you're back here, on this post-apocalyptic hellscape planet Earth (more specifically, in the city of Paris). You're without the Omnitrix, but you managed to smuggle out your trusty Velvet Revolver, though you probably shouldn't let anyone know you have it until your hope is down to the wire. You see, high above the sky, up in orbit, an old friend of yours is trying to kill you. His name? Crimelord Direhart. If the sky is quiet, that means one of two things: Congrats! You won! Or, more accurately, a previous iteration of you did. But that brings up the question, why are you still here on Earth in the city of Paris, instead of on a Higher Plane in the city of Lore? Or... You're completely and utterly fucked. Whatever "good", "resisted", or "allied" forces - whatever the hell you want to call the forces that are supposed to be defending you - were either defeated in a matter of minutes or just didn't show. But stay positive! The universe is only in danger of ending. Thank god, that exposition dump is over. So, hopefully you have a better idea of who you are now. Not trying to be a burden here, but... You've kind of got to get to work saving the universe. Best boot up the next version of Sol. SOL 101 LOGO HERE PRESS ANY KEY TO INITIATE START-UP... BOOTUP MENU: CONTINUE >NEW TIMELINE NEW TIMELINE SELECTED. PLEASE ENTER YOUR USERNAME. JULES PLEASE ENTER YOUR PASSWORD. hunter2 WELCOME, BACK JULES. ... SYSTEMS ON STANDBY. ... PRESSING MATTERS TO ATTEND TO BEFORE NEW TIMELINE CAN BEGIN. ... ... SWITCHING TO UNREGISTERED ASTROCAM 3 Okay, so maybe the message left for you at the start had some merit to it. You really can't start a good story - even if the story is an idiot's guide to saving the universe - without a bit of action. You got through all of that exposition, and now you deserve to enjoy a bit of action... You probably shouldn't enjoy it too much. If the forces of "good" do end up failing here and disrupting the Sol program start-up loop, then you're no better than a fish out of water. The monitor before you jumps to life, as do... all of the monitors next to it. There's a whole wall of monitors. Unfortunately, all of the monitors seem to be... Black. Probably because they're getting fed footage by astrocams, and in space, there's usually a whole lot of dark nothing. Except... There definitely shouldn't be, right now. Not if there's a whole intergalactic space battle happening in Earth's orbit. The images on the monitors begin to refocus themselves. Thank the heavens. You can now make out tens of thousands of space ships, all huddled together. Thanks to your nifty training in astronautics, you can easily tell which ships are on your side and which ships are against yours: the ones facing away from the Earth are on defense, and the ones facing towards the Earth are trying to kill you. It's like an intergalactic soccer match, with a penalty kick, but if the offending team makes the shot, everybody here dies. It's definitely high stakes for a sports game. You should probably work on your analogies more, but hell, this ain't the time for that. The wall of computers in front of you spits out a little joystick, wire attached. It thumps onto a bunch of papers that probably aren't really relevant anymore, but thankfully, they were there to cushion the blow. You lean down and pull the joystick up. You know how to handle it; you've done this tens of times before. As you twist the joystick in your hands, a small little cursor on the screen appears. You let it glide across the battalion of battleships until it rests upon one that appears to have been recently rammed and boarded. Yep, that seems to be the place of interest. You hit a button on the joystick and the camera recalibrates, switching to another viewpoint inside of the ship. Even if you might die in a few minutes, maybe hours if you're lucky, you have to admit that living in the future really has its perks. You know the boy's name, of course. He is Alexander Ezra. You have been through this conversation one hundred times - or more - it seems. And, because of your experience, you know that he's not going to name himself Alexander Ezra. If he was, why wouldn't this little series of yours have the title Alexander 101 instead of Sol 101? (Unless we split this episode up...) (Sol uses Nebulous Centerfold to return to the crash site) "A child? A child opposes me?" He repeated the question, as if the few seconds it took to ask made Sol age years instead. "Do you know how many children I've murdered? Thousands! Hundreds, with my bare hands!" "It's about to be... Whatever the number is, minus one." Sol's threat didn't make sense, but it didn't have to, because neither of them were smart enough to pick up on his error. (Sol uses Nebulous Crunch Punch to knock out what's his face for a while, or at least knock him back) Time seemed to slow a while, as if the universe itself was aligning just so Sol's silver fist could collide with the maniac's face. And it did, masterfully so. The alien lived up to his namesake. With one Punch, Edgelord went flying back into a tree with a satisfying Crunch. ALIEN 2, the Omnitrix boomed. Sol was about to point out that this was technically the third alien he had used, but then he remembered he was in a fight to the death and if his thoughts got sidetracked the encounter would probably just be shortened to "a death". Trivia *Technically, Alien 2 is the 2 1/3 alien that this iteration of Sol used: **Nebulous Centerfold = 1/3 **Nebulous Crunch Punch = 1/3 (+ 1/3 = 2/3) **Unstable Alien 2 = 2/3 + (+ 2/3 = 4/3) **Alien 2 = 1 (+4/3 = 7/3 or 2 1/3) *In the original version of Sol 10, Alien 2 was the second alien Sol ever used and thus his name was retained. Category:Episodes Category:Episodes in Production